William Blake

All of Blake’s poems appear to have a religious theme throughout the Songs of Innocence and of Experience. The poems in the Songs of Innocence are merrier than the poems in the Songs of Experience. The poem in particular I liked from Songs of Innocence was The Lamb, The Little Black Boy, and The Chimney Sweeper. They all had the same underlying theme, that God is within everyone and everything and it is he who makes everything alright no matter your situation, circumstance, or race. In the Songs of Experience, it is completely different from the Songs of Innocence in that the poems in the Songs of Innocence have not experienced much so therefore they are not pessimistic like the people and events that transpire in the Songs of Experience. It is as if they have let life’s trials and tribulations deter them from God. Perhaps this is a message that Blake is trying to get across that no matter what happens in life God is always prevalent. For example in The Chimney Sweeper in the Songs of Experience, versus the same poem in the Songs of Innocence in which the little boys were optimistic that better things were to come but in the Songs of Experience it was as if there was nothing better for them.